Someone Is Trying to Break Mastodon By Attacking One Large Instance. No Really.

As I post this, someone is seriously attacking Mastodon.social. They are probably also going for other large instances. I mean, maybe it’s that by brain does not want to accept the possibility that anyone on Earth who can locate and press a power button would think that they could successfully destroy :: breathe :: a protocol that anyone with a domain can link up with others using :: breathe :: by attacking one instance.

Okay, I have a theory that something happens to people who hate online and those who get sucked into that rabbit hole. It’s based on some facts that Diva made me aware of: that the internet and computing in general was built by people in marginalized communities, particularly the LGBTQIA+. Since there were empires and religious institutions to oppress anyone, the STEM field has been chock full of innovative survivors of hate, religious oppression, and colonialism. So someone who tries to use the internet to spread racism or homophobia is basically self cursing. All mysticism aside, this is like psychological self pwnage.

If someone persists in that mentality long enough, it requires so much energy for psychological acrobatics that it sucks resources that should be building pathways to maintain intelligence and hopefully increase wisdom with age. Brainpower that should be free to observe and expand one’s empathy is focused on conflict and destruction, while at the same time reducing one’s actual power to do but very limited damage.

I am indeed grateful for Nature, and the fact that it is impossible to be both a rational, thinking person and a compulsively hostile person at the same time. It makes things a lot easier. The level of impairment is what is baffling. I’m feeling a kind of mixed awe and the healthy kind of fear of Nature right now.

All this will do is basically convince those of us who were on the fence about whether or not to start our own instances to do so. It will also be a chance to show the power of decentralization. Mastodon is still running. Even if all of the large instances are attacked at once, the mini and personal instances will hold it up. So attacking a large instance is like trying to murder someone by pouting in a distracting way.